<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Woodhall. by hennethgalad</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23097307">Woodhall.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hennethgalad/pseuds/hennethgalad'>hennethgalad</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:00:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,579</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23097307</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hennethgalad/pseuds/hennethgalad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam learns a song from Gildor Inglorion.</p>
<p>10: Sam deciding to sing in Cirith Ungol</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Back to Middle-earth Month 2020: Endings and Beginnings</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Woodhall.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><br/>   Sam looked slowly around, no one was watching him; he carefully shifted and put a hand to his side, he had eaten too much and was paying the price. But the food of the elves was so good, each thing he had tasted was more delicious than the last, better than the finest the Shire could offer, of course he had eaten his fill, and then some more! He tried to burp quietly to ease his swollen gut, and thought seriously about undoing the buttons of his breeches, but he knew what the Gaffer would say about such cheek, and decided to put up with it, after all it was worth it!<br/>   The elves had stopped singing, Frodo was talking to Pippin and some elves, they were laughing, Sam smiled, poor Mr Frodo had been fretting so, it was a treat to see him take his ease. They were all calmed down now, after the queerness of those Black Riders, sniffing about on their tail, right in the heart of the Shire, on Bagshot Row itself, if you please! Sam sighed and shook his head, he would be sorry to see the last of these elves, he could not understand why Mr Frodo did not just tell Mr Gildor about the Ring, which even old Gandalf was worried about, and ask him to help them get to... to wherever they were going. But it was not his place to be asking questions like that, he would look after Mr Frodo wheresoever he chose to go, and that was that. </p>
<p>   The place was so lovely he almost forgot his belly, looking up he could see the stars twinkling away, and down on the trees the pretty lanterns shone brightly on everyone, making even Mr Pippin look mysterious and handsome. Sam snorted to himself, then looked at Frodo, who was listening to an elf, all serious and thoughtful. The light settled on him like icing on a cake, and even next to the elves he looked fine and lordly. Sam longed to take him safely back to Bag End, then remembered the Gaffer's frightened face, and knew that there was no longer anywhere to go back to, it was all or nothing with the dratted Ring.</p>
<p>   Gildor Inglorion sank gracefully to the ground beside him, and another elf lounged  on the grass, eating blackberries. He grinned at Sam, but Gildor said "Don’t mind him, his manners are a disgrace, and he does not speak the Common Tongue, but since he has never seen a hobbit up close, then with your permission?"<br/>   Sam laughed "Well, I've never seen an elf up close, so it’s only fair." He looked at the lolling elf, but it was clear that his words had not been understood. The elf raised a brow at Gildor, who spoke curtly in elvish. The elf made a slight face, as though he had been told off, and held out his blackberries to Sam. But Sam shook his head and clutched at his belly. The elf laughed and spoke a few words to Gildor, who exclaimed indignantly, then sighed "Mr Gamgee, if you can forgive his impertinence, he wishes to touch your foot."<br/>   Sam goggled at the elves, they really were strange. His toes curled, he wanted to tuck his feet out of sight, but his belly was too full to move. Gildor snapped a few words to the other elf, who paused in his eating and answered in the tones of one unjustly accused. Gildor gave a half-laugh "It is your hair, on your feet, you see... Even dwarves have no such... He wants to touch the hair. He is curious."<br/>  Sam laughed, and stuck out a large hairy foot at the elf, who grinned at him again and then wiped his hands and took the foot, and laid his long fingers on the thick hair for a moment, running the strands through his fingers. Then he let go, rose to his own feet, bowed to Sam, nodded to Gildor and joined another group of elves, who closed in about him, obviously plying him with questions. Sam looked up at Gildor "Mr Gildor, I'm thinking that they dared him to do that."<br/>   "Mr Gamgee, I suspect that you are right. Alas, for too long my people have ignored the world, we are grown uncouth and ill-mannered. Please do not judge us all by the behaviour of one boor."<br/>   "There’s always one, as my Gaffer says."<br/>   "Yes. There always is."</p>
<p>   They listened to the music in silence, as Sam's belly settled down. There was one song he liked in particular, about mountains and towers and the stars shining through the branches of trees like the lanterns around him. When the music stopped he found himself humming the tune. Gildor had his hands clasped around his knee, and tilted his head to one side "The song pleases you?" Sam nodded "Yet it was sung in our language, which you do not know."<br/>   Sam sat up straight "But the pictures come to you, even so, pictures of the sun shining down on clouds, which I've only seen once, when there was fog on the White Downs, and I looked back to Hobbiton and all the valley was under a shining blanket! It was very pretty. But your song seemed to speak to me, somehow."<br/>   Gildor sat up himself "Let me teach it to you, you already have the melody, let me tell you the words?"<br/>   Sam smiled "Oh will you? Thankyou very much sir!"<br/>   " 'In western lands beneath the sun<br/>     The flowers may rise in spring...' "</p>
<p>   While Sam was getting the words fixed in his mind, thinking gleefully of the chance to delight Mr Frodo when he needed a bit of a lift, Gildor refilled their goblets, and Sam found that after all he did have a little room left. Gildor raised his goblet "Mr Gamgee, I am honoured to have made your acquaintance. A hobbit of taste and discernment, indeed. For that song is very highly regarded among my people. I think it shows how alike our spirits really are that you should have picked out that song amidst the noise and tumult of our merry-making."<br/>   The elvish music had gotten to him, he thought, or he would never have imagined having such a notion "Mr Gildor, do you think our spirits... well... what I mean to say is, do you think elvish spirits and hobbit spirits are alike as water is all alike, or are they as different as... as wine and ale?"<br/>   Gildor sat back, a look of astonishment on his face "Why Mr Gamgee, you are a thinker! So that is why Frodo spoke so highly of you. We truly are more alike than you might suppose, Sam, for I too am a servant, of the House of Finrod Felagund." He looked sad at Sam’s blank expression "You have not heard the name? No? But you have heard of Galadriel? His sister? No? Elrond at least, you know of?"<br/>   Sam nodded vigorously, sorry to disappoint the elf. For a minute he felt a tiny flicker of understanding of the loneliness of these elves, whose world had vanished like dew in the morning, taking all the sparkle from the world. "Elrond Half-elven, mighty among the Wise" he said, and Gildor smiled sadly. Suddenly Sam remembered a familiar character from Bilbo’s fireside stories "Wait, was one of them the elvenking who stabbed the enemy in the foot seven times? He was my favourite!"<br/>   Gildor gaped at him, then laughed delightedly "Fingolfin? The duel of Fingolfin and Morgoth?"<br/>   "Fingolfin! That was it! His foe was so much bigger than him, but he did not despair, he simply stabbed him in the foot! Good advice for a small hobbit lad!"<br/>   Gildor lowered his eyes, and Sam stopped to think. The elvenking had died, the enemy had only needed to hit him once with his monstrous hammer and it was all over. "Sorry Mr Gildor, don’t mind me, blundering about, I'm only a gardener, not used to courtly ways like Mr Frodo. I forgot how the story ended."<br/>   Gildor smiled sadly at him "They are all gone, now, save Galadriel, sister to my lord Finrod and neice to the high king Fingolfin."<br/>   Sam looked at him through narrowed eyes "Are you telling me that you knew the elvenking from Bilbo’s story?"<br/>   Gildor laughed "Oh Sam... they seem like stories to me now, so long has passed... But talking to you, under the stars, with the sweet scents of grass and tree mingling with the wine and the fire, it brings the past vividly before me. If Fingolfin were here he would certainly turn aside from whatsoever he was doing to join your quest. None could match their valour, their hardihood, their glory. I speak also of Fingon the Valiant, his mighty son. They are kin to Elrond, Fingolfin is his great great grandfather."<br/>   Sam leaped to his feet, then sat down quickly, blushing, for every head had turned to him. In a hoarse whisper he said "Are you funning with me? My elvenking, I mean, from my favourite story, has family in Rivendell?"<br/>   Gildor laughed "All the more reason to follow Mr Frodo!"<br/>   "Are we going to Rivendell then?"<br/>   "I cannot say. But Gandalf, our Mithrandir, is often there, and whether you find him soon, or late, I deem that your path will lead you, one way or another, to the House of Elrond."</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><br/>   </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>